What do you guys think about Shamo? I thought the first and second

I read up till the end of magical chinks arc and never touched it again.

I feel the exact same. The prison arc and criminal arc had great social themes, while being a compelling and unique realistic manga. And then suddenly, chi appears? I felt everything fall through and I dropped it like crazy.

Why did magic chinks even happen? It felt extremely forced.

>>147698640
Wasn't there a writer switch or some bullshit?

>>147698921
I have quite literally no clue. The moment I saw the word "chi" in the manga, I stopped reading and haven't looked up anything about it since.

From what I remember it switched magazines and the new editor demanded it lighten up a bit and become a bit more shonen. The author always sort of loved kung fu so I thought he pulled it off as well as he could, it's not THAT bad of an arc. It does clash with the overall themes though because Shamo is a deconstruction of the martial arts genre, and then it suddenly becomes a kung fu manga. I always saw the first part as sort of an inversion of the standard martial arts movie stuff. It explores the darker sides of the mentor relationship, where a mentally ill young man meets an older role model who proceeds to fuck him up even worse.

Anyways it's my favourite series and it deserved better than the cancellation in the middle of a filler arc, but whatever.

>>147698221
It's great until the beginning or end of the china arc.
Then it's shit.

>>147699712
When the warden is talking to Kurokawa and mentions that his assassination attempt was inspired by a writer who believed that Japan was losing its national identity and becoming a replica of America, was he referring to Yukio Mishima?

Been meaning to ask someone.

The last arc with the brothers or something was fucking crazy.

Alike a lot of people, I liked the pre-China arc and hated the China one, but unlike a lot of people I actually enjoyed the Ballet-Jesus storyline.